In our modern society, couples who have difficulty conceiving naturally now have the option and privilege to access in vitro fertilisation (IVF) to achieve their dream of conceiving a baby. There’s also the scientific possibility to not only fertilise an egg outside of the womb, but to also determine the sex of a baby.

This is called pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) and in this process, several eggs are fertilised and individually tested to identify the sex and only fertilised embryos of the desired sex are placed back into the uterus.

“PGD is by far the most effective and accurate scientific technique for sex selection as it provides almost 100 percent accuracy,” says Professor Michael Chapman, Senior Fertility Specialist with IVF Australia. “Other scientific techniques only have a success rate of 50-70 percent but may claim it to be much higher on their websites.”

The debate – to choose or not to choose?

But while the technology makes sex selection possible, it also conjures up some important ethical issues. Should this option be available to couples who simply have a social preference – as opposed to a medical preference – for a child of a particular sex?

There are strong arguments on both sides of the debate.

Arguments for sex selection

Supporters of sex selection argue that it would provide a gender balance to families who are made up of a disproportionate number of children of one particular sex.

In Australia, as it is in other first world countries, such as New Zealand, the UK, the USA, Canada and Europe, gender balance is the driving force behind the desire for sex selection.

Professor Chapman agrees that gender balance is the main reason why Australian families might seek out options for sex selection.

“I see about 400 new patients a year in my fertility clinic and 10-15 of these would ask about sex selection,” he says. Of those, Professor Chapman says pretty much all these queries related to achieving family gender balance.

In other countries, where cultural practices and perceptions dictate a preference for producing males, if successful pre-conceptual sex selection methods were available, it’s argued it may help to prevent the prevalence of abortion or infanticide of female babies.

Arguments against sex selection

While offering a choice may work to balance out families, sex selection, it has been argued, also has the potential to develop a gender imbalance on a much wider scale.

For example, China’s one-child-policy has resulted in a country with ‘too many boys’ and too few females for the current maturing generation, resulting in significant social issues.

In addition, the IVF process is expensive in Australia, making it accessible only to those who can afford it and offers no guarantees that it will result in a successful pregnancy.

There is also concern that by employing this practise as a society we would be creating a generation of ‘designer babies’ – that is, beyond sex selection, once the technology is made readily available, it could result in the production of babies with preferred physiological characteristics – not unlike the Nazi ideal for blue eyed, blond haired babies of the Aryan race.